Science & Technology Current Affairs May 2016

Chinese Researchers Introduced Graphene-based All-weather Solar Cell

• Chinese researchers on April 9, 2016 have introduced a new approach for making an all-weather solar cell developed a highly efficient dye-sensitised solar cell. They created electricity with the assistance of raindrops.
• They coated this cell with a whisper-thin film of Graphene in which the atoms are bonded into a honeycomb arrangement. It can readily be prepared by the oxidation, exfoliation, and subsequent reduction of graphite.
• Salty water always contains a whole lot of positive ions of elements like sodium, potassium etc. These positively charged ions bind to the ultra-thin layer of graphene and form a double layer with the electrons that are already present over there.
• It have two layers, with a substantial potential difference between them. This difference is what actually generates the electric current.

World’s Smallest Diode Created

• The researchers from America and Israel combinedly created and characterised the world’s smallest diode, which is only one molecule small.
• They took a single DNA molecule and connected it to an electronic circuit. After measuring current, they found that the molecule did not present any universal behaviour but when the DNA was combined with a molecule named coralynsbehaviour of circuit changed.
• This findings help to search for silicon chip replacement and could lead to creation of electronic devices that are small and more powerful.

Ecology & Environment Current Affairs

New Species of Mouse Lemurs Found in Madagascar

• The scientists found three new species of mouse lemurs in Madagascar on April 16, 2016 taking the total number of known mouse lemur species to 24. Mouse lemurs are small, nocturnal primates, which are only found in Madagascar and they all look very similar with their brown fur and large eyes.
• The three new discovered species are named— Ganzhom’s mouse lemur, Microcebusmanitatra and Microcebusboraha.
• According to the ‘Red List’ of the IUCN, more than 100 known species of lemurs are threatened by extinction and represent the world’s most endangered group of mammals.

 Tiger Population Increased for First Time in a Century

• The world’s count of wild tigers roaming forests for the first time has shown increased in more than a century, with 3890 counted by conservation groups and national governments in the latest global census.
• In this regard, a conference held in India which hopes to double the global tiger population by 2022.
• India alone holds more than half of the world’s tigers, with 2226 tigers roaming reserves across the country, from the Southern tip of Kerala State to the SSastern swamps in West Bengal, according to its last count in 2014.
• The last worldwide estimate in 2010, when the number of tigers in the wild hit an all-time low of about 3200, according to the World Wildlife Fund and the Global Tiger Forum. This is the first time tiger counts are increasing since 1900, when there were more than 100000 tigers in the wild.